ASUS has officially announced its refreshed PadFone Infinity with the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, a micro SD card slot and several software tweaks and other improvements.

The original PadFone made its debut back in February this year, at the Mobile World Congress (MWC). Just six months later, the company is now ready to unleash the new and improved version of its smartphone/tablet combo.

"Yes the New PadFone Infinity has arrived! Featuring an awesome Snapdragon 800 2.2GHz chip for super-fast reactions times!" boasted ASUS on its official Facebook page.

The new Snapdragon 800 chipset marks a major step up from the Snapdragon 600 processor that powered the previous iteration. Another great change is the addition of a micro SD card slot, a feature PadFone users repeatedly requested. On the other hand, the option for additional memory comes at a cost: the refreshed PadFone Infinity comes with half the storage space, i.e. 16GB and 32GB options, compared to the previous 32GB and 64GB configurations. ASUS also throws in plenty of cloud storage space, however, so users may not be too bothered about the reduction in internal storage. The refreshed version should also run smoother, as it now packs 2GB of RAM.

The new ASUS PadFone Infinity hybrid runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean out of the box and sports a number of changes to the user interface. The camera firmware, for instance, received a major update and now combines information from several physical pixels to create a sharper, less noisy scaled-down image.

In terms of design, ASUS dressed the refreshed version of its PadFone Infinity in a classy, metallic body that no longer sports the brushed metal texture the original device did. The tablet dock, meanwhile, remains essentially the same, which means that the dock for the original PadFone Infinity will work with the refreshed model as well.

The new smartphone/tablet combo will reportedly be available in black and white color options and will go on sale in Taiwan for about $640 off-contract. ASUS gave no details so far regarding the launch of the new PadFone Infinity in its home market or other parts of the world.